Max Brenner’s must be packed with singles on Valentines Day. What better place to drown your sorrows than to have chocolate covered…everything? I recently went there for a friend’s 20th birthday and, let me tell you, this place seriously puts Willy Wonka to shame. Continue reading →

David Lebovitz is a genius. He can take something delicious (white chocolate) and turn it into something UBER-delicious (caramelized white chocolate). I wish there were more recipes that made good use of caramelized white chocolate. I’m not much into ice cream in this weather, nor any of his other suggestions. I’ve tried to replace it with white chocolate in blondie recipes, but it’s not really the same – I feel like the caramelization takes too much of the moisture out of the chocolate.

One thing I learned from this is that Ghirardelli isn’t all it’s hyped up to be. Their white chocolate turned out to be really chalky and grainy and not good for caramelizing. What was supposed to take an hour took two and a half instead. Still delicious, but way more tedious. It’s such an easy procedure that anyone can do it, but if you’re going to invest an hour of your time, spring for the good stuff (ie – Valrhona or Guittard)

Instead of copying out the recipe word for word anyway, I’m just going to direct you to David’s recipe.

Yes, I did sit in front of my oven and watch it caramelize.

Tips (in addition to the ones he lists on his blog)

Do NOT use Ghirardelli White Chocolate chips (as mentioned above)

To avoid getting water on: do NOT wash your spatula in between scraping. Scrape as much of the chocolate off your spatula as possible when you’re done using it each time.

It’s easier to “stir” in the sea salt at the end by just sprinkling it on and smoothing it with the spatula as you normally would.

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I'm not an expert on cooking. I mess up, I burn things, I set things on fire... But I love everything about good food. I love eating it, I love making it, I love being near it. Read all about my food adventures - baking successes (or catastrophes), cooking, and thoughts on the restaurants I eat in.